After a wellbore is drilled into a subterranean formation, a liner or casing may be coupled to the borehole wall to maintain or strengthen the wall. The drilling apparatus is removed and the liner or casing is placed into the wellbore. An annular area is thus formed between the casing string and the formation. A cementing operation is then conducted in order to fill the annular area with cement. Downhole application of the cement may include the use of plugs or darts to separate the cement from a displacement fluid, to wipe the inside of the casing or liner, and to provide a hydraulic pressure indication that the cement conveyed through the casing or liner has been fully inserted into the annular area between the casing and the formation. The wellbore is buttressed by the cemented casing.
To properly produce hydrocarbons from the formation into the wellbore, the well may be stimulated by perforating or fracturing operations. Stimulating the well in such ways increases hydrocarbon production from the well, as the perforations or fractures propagated into the formation provide conductivity paths for the formation fluids along which the greatest possible quantity of hydrocarbons in an oil and gas reservoir can be drained/produced into the well bore. In some wells, it may be desirable to individually and selectively create multiple fractures along a well bore at a distance apart from each other. To control the creation of multi-zone fractures along the well bore, it may be necessary to cement a casing or liner to the well bore and mechanically isolate the subterranean formation being fractured from previously-fractured formations, or formations that have not yet been fractured. To perforate the casing and fracture the formation, a device may be lowered into the cased wellbore with explosives or charges. Once lowered to the proper depth, the device, such as a perforating gun, is actuated to perforate the casing and fracture the formation. The pumping operations and perforating operations described are often referred to as “pump-and-perf” operations. Efforts to improve efficiency of pump-and-perf operations or other pump down operations are continually being sought.